Cards
by peggie sue
Summary: /"Holiday cards. Motherfucking holiday cards. She feels like a fool in the store even as she picks them up; she feels guilty with them in her hands, like someone is going to look over her shoulder and see the glittery font and cheery paper and know, just know that she's an imposter."/ Olivia Benson is a professional bullshitter. S15, multi-chapter, EO friendship (yeah right).
1. Chapter 1

Holiday cards. _Holiday_ cards. Motherfucking holiday cards. She feels like a fool in the store even as she picks them up; she feels guilty with them in her hands, like someone is going to look over her shoulder and see the glittery font and cheery paper and know, just _know_ that she's an imposter.

The imposter paranoia seems to be a theme these days, but she's wearing dangly earrings and her sweater is fluffy and her hair is done—she actually woke up this morning and did it—so she figures, what the hell. Holiday cards it is.

She tells her therapist about the purchase and he looks at her crookedly.

"Are you excited about them?"

"I don't know."

"Have you ever bought holiday cards before?"

"No." This is not a lie.

"Are you..." he stops, rephrases. "Do you think you bought them because you're happy with where your life is now, and that that's something you want to share?"

Her legs suddenly feel like sausages inside too-tight casings, i.e. black stockings. She wants to be wearing pants. She wants to be wearing her boots. She wants her hair to be in a ponytail. She misses her blouses, as plain as they were. She thinks she's happy, so she nods. That's perfectly logical. There is no reason, besides the obvious couple of reasons, besides that whole thing with Lewis that she's really not going to think about today, that she should not be happy. She should be overflowing. If she could sing, she should probably be doing it. When she steps outside, there is every heavy obligation to twirl in joyous, giddy circles.

"Yeah," she says quietly. "I think—Of course I'm happy. It's just... it's weird to..."

"To what?"

He's so nice. This guy is so nice and encouraging and willing to let her steep in comfortable, comfortable bullshit for a while longer. Happy holidays.

"To want to share it," she affirms, because it's true.

He asks, "Have you ever wanted to share your happiness with anyone before? Or share the happiness you feel with someone with everyone else?"

"I, um. Not like this." _I've never been happy before. I'm married to suffering. I thought vulnerability was love for a really long time but now I have my shit together. _

"What did Brian say about the cards?"

She smiles, kind of inwardly. "Asked who we were gonna send them to, asked when the hell I'd have the time to fill 'em out. But he was... happy. Didn't find them quite as revolutionary as I did."

"Who _are_ you going to send them to?"

She shrugs. "Maybe everyone. Maybe no one. Maybe it was just... the notion."

"The idea that you could send them."

"Yes."

"Because you're happy."

"Yes."

He smiles, and she thinks the guy most be so goddamned tired. "I'm glad for you, Olivia."

She nods, hikes her skirt down as she stands up to go.

She is so, so fucked up.

X

_Seasons greetings! Thinking of you, Olivia and Brian_

_Seasons greetings! -Olivia Benson_

_Seasons greetings! Sincerely, Liv and Brian_

_Seasons greetings! Olivia Benson, Brian Cassidy_

_Seasons greetings! Yes I was held captive, tortured, and sexually assaulted by a serial rapist and murderer for a period of four days this summer, but you know what, water under the bridge, nothing a little kale juice can't fix. x- Olivia _

She feels like this would be less weird if she had a child or more than six friends. The card is blue with silver snowflakes across it, perfect and vague and non-denominational. It's inclusive, and she figures that this is what normal, barren couples must send out during the wintertime. _We're on our third round of In Vitro and Paul gained 30 pounds since the summer, but you get a silver star for not asking us about it_. She figures that it's supposed to feel forced, so she sticks to first names, Olivia and Brian, and decides that anyone confused can check the return address for confirmation.

She writes one to Calvin and writes a longer note on the inside. Something like, Call me immediately, you adorable little bugger, because I miss you and I love you, and I need you to come interrogate my significant other. She writes another to Maria Recinos, who sends her cookies every year. A third goes to Jeannie Kerns, another to Sarah Walsh. She thinks, These are like business cards.

She'll send one to Amanda, to Nick, to Fin, to Don, to John, despite his inevitable response phone call to mock her, _our little girl's gone soft_ or something. One to the therapist. He's a nice guy.

She wonders if people send holiday cards out of spite ever, to say Look how happy I am, or Thanks a lot for the phone call, you ass, I'm glad our twelve years meant so much to you, or I don't even give a fuck what you're doing except that I think about you every single minute, but I genuinely hope you and your wife and your kids are as happy as clams.

She does. She hopes he's happy. She feels happy, here in her new apartment with her new kitchen and gifted wine glasses, almost like wedding presents, and she feels settled. Her life in and of itself is happy, objectively speaking, and she's comfortable with that. She wants him to know. She wants it maybe a little because she wants him to see that she can be okay—be good—without him. But mostly she wants him to know because she thinks he'd be proud. She thinks he'd be happy that she was the organized, relaxed kind of person that sent out greeting cards at Christmastime.

She addresses one to his house in Queens. Maybe once she knows he's seen the return address, she'll stop having that nightmare where he comes to get her, to find her on W. 89th, but all that's left of her is gone so he stays out of her life by default.

She has a lot of dreams like that, and she takes something to sleep now because her anxiety dreams kept getting the sheets sweaty, and that's disgusting.

X

She is admiring her Christmas tree when the phone rings. The tree is giant—they had to cut a bit off the top to make it fit into the apartment with room enough for the star—and she can't name a single thing in this world that she's ever loved more. Brian made a biggish deal out of the fact that this was her first real Christmas tree (she'd had a fake one until she was twelve or thirteen, and then none went up at all) and she liked it. She liked it when he kissed her for reminding him to put the lights on before the ornaments, when he told her to lay down on the floor below it and look up through the branches, etc. etc. She likes that they drink eggnog—Brian doesn't actually like eggnog, but he sips his cup slowly and watches her drink it—and that they are so, so cliché. The thought dances through her brain like the goddamn sugarplum fairy. She likes it.

"This is Olivia," she says when she answers her cell phone, and for a second she's repelled. She's never answered the phone that way in her life, let alone in the past two decades. _This is Olivia_. What is she, twelve?

"Hi Olivia," says the voice across the line. She doesn't recognize it immediately— "This is, uh, Kathy. Kathy Stabler." —and she finds that considerably more horrifying than if she had. Her Christmas tree suddenly looks like an ominous rainbow giant.

"Kathy," she hears herself saying. "What um, what a surprise."

The giant is trying to eat the apartment. It's getting closer.

"I know. I'm sorry you didn't recognize the number, we got rid of the landline last summer—"

It might fall over. It might chew her face off, what with all those sharp glass pieces. She should probably run.

"That's fine. I'm glad to hear from you." She does not know if this is a lie.

She imagines the blonde woman standing in her kitchen, hip leaning against the counter. When she imagines Kathy she usually thinks of Eli nearby, bouncing in his high chair or crawling or cooing over blocks, but the kid is probably like seven by now.

"It was nice to hear from you too, Olivia." Oh, fuck. The cards. Hadn't that been valiant. "Listen, that's actually just what I was calling to talk to you about. Your card was so sweet, and it was so nice to hear that you were doing well, especially given— especially since the kids hadn't heard from you in so long."

Nice save, Kathy.

"They're all doing okay?" she asks, still wondering what the hell this woman wants from her. She's already gotten the grand prize, hasn't she?

As soon as the thought flies through her mind, she wishes she'd bitten it back. She wishes it had never dug itself into fruition.

She's happy. _I'm happy_. Fuck.

"Yes. Yeah. They're, um— sweetie, don't eat that, you know dinner's on the stove— sorry, Eli's trouble today. They're all great. Maureen's in Brooklyn and I think Kathleen wants to move closer to her, she's at home for now, and the twins, I mean... college, they're almost done, and they're excited to be in the real world."

"Who wouldn't be?" She thinks she sounds contrived. She bets Kathy can see how thin her voice is, how empty her grin is, from an entire borough away.

There's a pause. "Look, Olivia," Kathy says, kind of quietly. "I was so glad to hear from you. I was so happy to know that you're happy. But, um. Elliot— I'm sorry. I don't know how to say this. It was probably just an oversight, but I wanted to be sure. You stuck Elliot's name in with ours on your card, and I'm sure you sent another one to him anyway, but— "

"Hm?" She wonders if the floor can actually carry the weight of her sofa. She wonders if it would hurt if she fell through, couch and all, all the way into the basement.

"Our card, the one we got from you in the mail. It was addressed to the seven of us."

And?

"Yeah, I... yes." Her voice isn't working. She feels like somebody froze her larynx. She feels like somebody is strangling her from behind and suddenly the apartment is too hot, the fabric of her leggings is itchy, the lights on tree look ridiculous and are probably hiking up her bill—

Kathy's voice breaks the long silence. "You don't know, do you?" Her voice does not rise at the end. It is more of a statement than a question, more an assessment of her incompetence than an inquiry.

"Know what?" She sounds five, but decides it must be worse. She sounds twenty-five. _I'm a good cop, Elliot. I just need to snuggle with you for a while, and maybe have some applesauce._

"Olivia," Kathy says, and even if she was a perfect stranger, she thinks you'd still know that she was a mother. Olivia considers vomiting but instead just makes a throat noise. "Olivia," she says again. "Elliot and I... our divorce was finalized last February. We've been separated since last summer. He, um. He lives in Manhattan now, in the village."

If she could breathe, she'd say something like, Well isn't he really fucking trendy? But she can't breathe, and instead says nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

She wonders briefly if she's the oldest patron this bar has seen since beginning of NYU's fall semester but decides to stop wondering about that almost immediately. It is noon on a Sunday, and she is drunk. If you asked Brian where she was right now, he'd tell you the Met, and then her afternoon yoga class. Afternoon yoga. She pictures herself a year ago, or two or three years ago, cackling at the very idea of yoga. Such a silly housewife thing. She bets that Kathy does yoga, that her heels touch the ground in every downward facing dog, that all those years in the bedroom with Elliot has left her rather—_no, Olivia_. She finishes her drink and orders another. Today is a purposeful day.

X

The building is nice, the lobby is a deep forest green color and the wood is dark and she feels like if her senses were working correctly, it'd probably smell a little bit delicious. A man in a suit passes her as she steps into the elevator and yes, this is absolutely a bachelors-only situation. She thinks she's visibly intoxicated because the doorman gave her a look—yes, the doorman, his building has a doorman—and she's momentarily glad that she came in her oversized hoodie and leggings and sneakers. At least she doesn't look like a stripper, a mid-morning prostitute.

She has a headache. She's glad that some teenybopper bled out on her favorite sweatshirt five or so years ago because at least she isn't still wearing clothes that smell like Elliot.

Elliot. Shit. That's why she's here.

Today is a purposeful day.

She has come, full of anger and resentment and vodka, to bitch the man out. Merry Christmas.

X

She's glad she can't see straight. She's glad her vision is slightly blurred and that she's a little bit woozy because if she was being honest with herself, the sight of him would make her feel that way anyway. She makes it to the door that looks like it's labeled 5C, but she can't be sure. The letters are shiny. She hopes her breath doesn't smell and that her voice won't sound wobbly. Today is a yelling day, a fire-breathing-dragon day. If she could feel her extremities, she'd feel like an impenetrable force knocking on that door.

When it opens, her mind forgets to give itself a second of somber, quiet sobriety. She forgets to take him in, to rake her eyes over his arms and chest and dear God, he hasn't shaved yet today.

"Olivia." It's a statement/question mixture, and then, "What are you doing here?" He's incredulous, and she is having none of that. She can't exactly see him, not when the floor keeps moving—_fuck_—and she keeps tipping a little to the left. Her hand finds the doorway, finds someplace to brace itself. His eyes fall on her manicure and if she could, she'd yell at him for noticing her nails first after all this time. She wants to say, I've lost ten pounds, I leave my hair curly, I put on those pieces of fake eyelashes for a date last week with my boyfriend and I keep finding them stuck to the sheets and sink and wall of the shower.

She says none of the above. Instead, she stares. For a minute her mind compares his eyes—the way they used to be—to the star on top of her Christmas tree. Bright. Shiny. Perfect. Terrifying. She has to pee.

"Liv," he scratches, and it's too gentle. She's too obvious. Too drunk at noon. He touches her arm lightly and she jumps, just a little, just because jumping away from unexpected touches is a thing now, and her mind screams _Bad idea bad idea bad idea_.

She is out of place. She should not have come here.

"Liv, how did you get this address?"

And then she's angry.

"How did I... How—What, are you serious? How did I get this address?"

He says nothing. Admonishes his feet. She follows his gaze and momentarily contemplates laying down on the floor next to his socks and waving up at him like a lunatic, but decides against it. When she looks up at him again his eyes are still empty, his lips still pursed. He's still the disapproving father: _You're drunk, Olivia_, and still has no idea what the fuck she's doing here. _Go home._

"It was—" her voice is cracky. She tries again. "It was the Christmas cards, Elliot!"

It is preposterous that he does not immediately understand.

His eyes are still looking at her, big and old and tired, and she thinks that hers are getting wet. She thinks, I will not cry. You will not cry, Olivia_._ She hasn't had a thing to drink before today since June and she forgot that vodka makes her weepy. Makes her I-need-Elliot complex multiply tenfold. Abillionfold.

_Thinking about someone you're never gonna see again? Boyfriend? No, huh? Someone else. Someone who you would give anything to see just one more time._

Her head spins, and she feels Long Island. If Long Island were a feeling, it would be all over her, all inside of her, right now and in every single minute surrounding. Her hair is sweating. Her clothes feel too tight and it's summer in December.

_You don't get. To talk about him._

"The Christmas cards?"

She forgets what he's talking about. She wants to go home and feels stupid for moving. The new house is too small. One apartment is too small for two people, and Brian talked her out of getting the spare bedroom, and her insides feel cold and empty and sandy. Elliot looks at her—the drunk girl on his doorstep. She feels like Maureen but fifteen or so years ago, caught red handed.

"Liv," he tries, reaching for her arm again. She decides not to flinch. Her eyes close. "Why don't you come inside, alright?"

He guides her through the doorway, he cares too much, and that makes her angry.

"Inside?" she bites, and finally it's something. "Inside your fancy new place—your pad?" She looks around. There's a horrific plaid couch and an exposed brick wall she likes too much and a fold-out picture frame on the end table that probably has something to do with his kids. She forgets how many there are—four? Nine? Sixty-seven?

"Olivia—"

"Is this how it's always been?" she asks. "Was this always your plan? Huh?" There's acid on her tongue and whatever she's about to say, it's coming. She can't stop it. Even the way he's looking at her, like she's got six heads and enough need to flood the fifth floor of his building, can't stop it.

"Was..." he looks around him, helpless. Detective Stabler, would you like to phone a friend? "Liv, was what my plan?"

Her face crinkles: he is missing the point. All the points. "Was—_Elliot_!" she can't even speak, she can't even articulate herself, but her whole face feels damp and shaky and she raises her hands to the corners of her eyes. She forgets how out of context this is. How out of context _she_ is.

"Liv," he says softly. "Liv, I think you're drunk. I think you should sit down, okay?"

"Okay?!" She snaps. "Okay? Do you think it's okay that you never even loved—" _Whoa Benson. Slow down._ His lips move and he's probably still trying to protect her dignity. Dignity. Good one. Her definition of dignity these days involves remembering to water the potted plant on her desk. He goes to say her name again—_Olivia_—but she's quick, and she cuts him off.

"No, you know what, fuck that."

_My old partner, he'd know what to do. He wouldn't question himself after what you've done. He—he'd kick your teeth in. Break your legs, break your arms, break your back, break your face._

Dignity. She'll get some. It's tempting.

_Maybe I should call 'em. Maybe I should get him to use that metal bar on you._

She wants to say, I'm a lot less angry than you think I am. I just need you to come back and fix everything.

Instead: "You never even cared about this for a second and you had no problem leaving and you had no problem waiting until I was out of your hair to go find what you really wanted." Anger is easier. She feels balanced enough to pace. Her arms fly around, and maybe he's finally paying attention because he can't believe that she still looks like the conductor of an orchestra when she yells. "Sorry I was ever stupid enough to think that out of all the burdens you could choose from, you'd pick me. Good thing you left before you'd ever have to pretend to care about me, right? Before you were a free man again? Good fucking thing. Good fucking thing you'll never have to lie to me about _wanting_ me, right?"

It's bitter, dry. "Olivia—"

"I'm having a ton of great sex these days anyway. You should see me in the bedroom, it's kind of really fucking hilarious. I'm on fire. Never fucked anybody harder in my life. I actually can't physically do it on the bottom anymore, but the therapist tells me that's normal."

"Olivia." He still doesn't know. Her voice cracks and she throws her arms into the air, giddily empty.

"Normal! I'm really fucking normal these days Elliot, and you're missing all the fun!"

"Olivia, sit the fuck down!" His anger is quick and sharp and so, so predictable. She isn't intimidated by him, and maybe that's why she's laughing maniacally in his living room, unwelcome, uninvited. Maybe he's pissed, or maybe some twisted part of his psyche is still interested in protecting her. She doesn't care. There is very little she cares about anymore, so she laughs harder, swaying on her feet.

"What, you think your scary? Big boss man tryna calm me down, protect my pride..." she shakes her head. "'fraid I'll wake up tomorrow and not remember a thing I said? 'fraid I'll send a Christmas card to your wife again? Hm?"

"I—... you sent a Christmas card to Kathy?"

She inhales big and slow, lets the air out as she speaks. "Oh yeah. Big holiday celebration this year. Promotion, new apartment, two weeks panic attack free... _Seasons greetings! Love, Liv and Brian!_"

"Olivia."

He's giving her nothing, he's not taking the bait, and the hilarity seeps out of the room. He's a vacuum. He's taken it away. That's not surprising.

"Are you surprised?" she asks, and her voice suddenly sounds too loud, but it's too late to stop. Too late to rewind, back out, pretend this never happened. She's crossed the line and she will cross it again and again. "I thought if anything you'd be proud. Maybe jealous. Hot and jealous."

He sighs and steps closer. Her card had gone to Kathy, intended for him, and his ex-wife had told her the truth. It was inevitable, but now he's stuck, and he thinks that he's never seen Olivia Benson this broken. This cracked, this off the handle. "Liv," he tells her, "why don't you sit down for a minute. Lemme get you some Seltzer." He forgot how big her eyes were.

"M'not gonna... flinchif you touch me." Her words are slurred.

"Okay."

"I'm not." She's trying in the coherence department. He'll give her that.

"Can you sit down for me?"

She moves towards the couch. "For me, I'll do it."

"That's fine." … "How much have you had?"

"More than you." Maybe she's giving up.

"I haven't had _any, _Liv."

"S'actly." Her head tips against the pillow, and whatever fire's in her is burning out. His hand bumps her knee, and he's not mad. He can't be.

"Gimme one second."

"'kay."

He moves to the kitchen. When he comes back, she's asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Someone is pounding her head with a hammer. She automatically runs through the list of potential explanations: shot, tackled, drugged, 'shroomed. Knifed in the throat but in the right spot this time. Punched in the face. She creaks an eye open and her gaze lands on exposed brick. This is a wall, she thinks. When she lifts her head up—_God, that's heavy_—and looks around more fully, she sees it's dark outside. And then she sees a table with a picture on it. It's a little baby in a yellow jumpsuit, and she thinks, Nononono, this can't be right, but yesyesyesyes, it absolutely is, because there are four other smiling children in the adjacent frame. Two are clutching graduation caps and sheathed in red gowns. The smell of beer and an container of Chinese takeout, juxtaposed to a giant container of Legos and Monopoly box, tell her that she is in the apartment of Elliot Stabler.

Fuck.

She thinks, I will sit here quietly until I have to move because I can no longer take the smell of my own armpits.

She thinks, I will run like hell or disappear completely, but I will find Advil first.

She thinks, If he sees me, I will die, and then, No I won't, because I don't care, because I've lost enough weight that my cheekbones look better with this motherfucking haircut, and I am hot, cool, and collected, and I also have a boyfriend that loves me and wants to fuck me, but respectfully, and on days when I feel Better.

"Ah, she's awake."

The voice jars her. Elliot has always had the overwhelming ability to jar her, even when he's saying something equivalent to _It lives_. Like a mad scientist and his Frankenstein. _It lives it lives it lives._ She feels a bit like an It and probably looks like one given the way her hair feels staticky and stuck to her forehead and the distinct texture of oil permeates the skin on her nose. Her throat is dry.

"Can I—water?"

He nods. "Comin' right up." She has to squint to do it but she watches the way his body looks as he saunters into the kitchen, and he does, he actually saunters. There is a swagger in his hips that she's missed, and as he returns to the living room and extends both a glass of water and a palm full of four Ibuprofen in her direction—"M'lady"—it's something as simple as his fucking hips, the way he walks, that gets her. And she is gotten a million times over.

Elliot sits opposite her on the coffee table, his legs to the right of hers. His face is looking past her shoulders the way he's hunched over, elbows resting on knees, and she's glad that he might not be watching her in the moment she squeezes her eyes shut and thinks, Don't cry don't cry don't cry. She is already the asshole. She has already passed out drunk in his apartment, in his home. In the home she didn't know he had. The home she hadn't been privy to.

This is Elliot Stabler, and she is Olivia Benson, and she hadn't even sensed him in New York City. It stings. It stings because she is a live wire when it comes to Elliot but even those parts of her are numb now, are gone now. She feels very much like a shell, and will feel it even more so after she vomits. She imagines that this will be soon.

She asks, "Whattimeisit?"

_Time for you to get a watch._

_Time for you to stop getting drunk before noon._

"Little after six."

He can't even tease her anymore. She thinks being strangers is a funny thing and then the guilt overwhelms her. Her head falls forward into her hands. "God," she mutters. "God, Elliot. Shit."

"Gotta get home?" he asks, and this is the first time his voice has risen an octave. He is infinitely more thawed out, more open, more together than she. Even in his holey, shitty jeans from 1999. Even is his stupid sweater. Even though he's barefoot in the middle of the fucking winter.

"Probably. Brian's probably worried."

"You really fucking him?" he asks, and it's an empty chuckle.

Her face burns. Eyes, cheeks, all of it. "I didn't—did I really say that?"

He shrugs. "Somethin' like it."

"It's not just... we're not... Brian and I are good, Elliot."

"Good?"

"We live together."

"Oh."

_It's oppressive and terrifying and I want to love him so badly but I can't, I just can't do it, and he's so stupid and wonderful and he thinks that I'm all that, and really I'm just a big liar, but he doesn't know to call me on it. He doesn't even know how. _

"Yeah."

"You love him?"

"You ever plan on telling me that you ended your fucking marriage?"

At least she was quick that time.

He sighs. "I didn't have any plan, Liv." At least it's honest. "I was just... I just had to get used t' bein' normal. Y'know?"

God, does she know.

"Yeah."

_Know_. It strikes her then that he doesn't. That he has no idea why she's here, what's driven this. That he he must have no idea about Lewis, about the whole fucking summer, about her trial next month. There is no way he knows because if he did, he would have come for her. He would have come to get her. He would have been the first one there that day on Long Island, he would have been the one to hit Lewis with the bedpost, he would have been the one to crush his head in. To break his bones. He would have been the one to save her because he could have, because he would have known how to do it right, because he would have signed her cast or done something stupid to make her feel in control, and he wouldn't have let her buy a Nutribullet from that goddamn infomercial or let her wear ballgowns to therapy just to feel validated, or like a woman. He would have chewed out the assholes from CSU that left her to clean up her own apartment, and he would never have told her about it.

She thinks regardless of whether or not he loved her he would have brought her home, brought her here, and it compounds her nausea to think that the only way she'd ever gain entrance, gain welcome into his space again was through her assault. Her victimization. It's made worse when she realizes she thinks of this place, whatever the fuck it is, as home. Simply because he is in it.

"You said you were—"

"I have no idea what I said, Elliot."

He stares straight past her. She stares straight ahead.

"I wanted you to know. I've wanted you to know, Liv."

"I think you're lying."

"I think you are too."

She falters. She doesn't want to but she can't help but face him as the words tumble from her lips in disbelief. "Ex_cuse_ me?"

He looks at her, and when their eyes meet, she feels nothing.

"I think you're a liar, Olivia Benson."

Nothing. It's all nothing. She hears the words but something about them doesn't register, something about the venom in them, the anger, doesn't feel real. She is used to disassociating from feeling delicate and being treated as such. She is used to filling up her hollow body with notions of empowerment, of Hey, look at me, I'm thriving over here. But not this. Never this. This is the thing that would tear her to pieces, this is the _I need to know you can do your job and not wait for me to come to your rescue_. She should move to Oregon over this, but instead she is still on his couch, unmoving. Needing to be rescued but too indifferent about her own existence to ask.

She blinks.

She says to the only person in the world that knows her, "I don't care what you think of me."

She doesn't hate him. The only person she hates lives inside of her skin.

He flares his nostrils. "M'tryin' to tell you—I... You're not okay. M'tryin' to tell you that I don't think that you're okay."

_I know. I'm wearing ninety dollar yoga pants. _

"I'm fine."

"You're not," he tells her, putting his hand on her knee as if it hasn't been three years since he's seen her. "You're not, and I don't know why other than—" he stops, redirects. "This job, Liv. This fucking job uses you up and spits you out and by that time it doesn't matter, because you're already gone."

"S'not the job," she says quietly, but he doesn't stop to hear her.

"Of—fuck, of _course_ it's the job." There's fire in his voice now. "It kills you, Liv. It killed me, and I wasn't... I wasn't a person, anymore. I shot a little girl, and I felt nothing. I looked at a little girl and killed her, I killed a person, and I felt _nothing_."

She swallows. "It's not the job." Her eyes are watering and God, at least it's emotion.

She is tired. He is silenced.

"It's not the job." And then, "Do you even... do you even watch the fucking news, Elliot?"

He's silenced by that too. The answer is no. The answer is that he's spent the last three years living in radio silence in a grand attempt to feel something, but nothing's worked. Only she can take the chill out of his fingertips, and she's half drunk and empty and stoic on his sofa. She's as broken as he is, and they don't fit together anymore, and if they've learned anything at all it's that they both suck at coping, with or without the other.

He swallows, his voice grates. "Will you at least tell me about it?" It's a whisper. It's a _What happened in the basement?_, but neither of them have anything to lose this time.

Her shoulders lift in a shrug, but she gives up halfway through. "Not today."

Her eyes roam his face until she starts to get nervous, and she plays with her hands, averts her gaze as she begins to fiddle with the zipper of her sweatshirt. She doesn't want the burns to show because she doesn't want to feel nothing when he runs his fingers over them, because he will. Elliot will learn and know and then he will touch her, quietly. Gently. He's touched her, really touched her, really held her, three times. She feels marginally less empty in the moments where she shrinks back in time and is herself and is in his arms. In the same moment the thought crosses her mind, she thinks, God, that's disgusting. _I am a saccharine motherfucker_.

"Tomorrow?"

"I have to get home, Elliot."

She is standing very quickly, and the floor wobbles beneath her. He catches her elbow.

"M'gonna call you tomorrow."

She doesn't answer as he walks her to the door.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I shouldn't have—I'm sorry. I'm really—"

"Liv?"

"Hm?" He distracts her from her apologies.

"I said I was gonna call you tomorrow."

She nods, leaves.

It takes her the elevator ride down to the lobby to realize that he isn't shutting her out. Instead, he is bringing her back into his space. He is bringing her back. He wants her with him, and slowly, he will bring her back.

_**A/N:**_ Sneaking my author's note in at the end this time. Yes, the holidays are over. Yes, I will continue to use this fic as an excuse to make Christmas last forever. Now that we've covered our angsty bases, get stoked for El and Liv to becomes bestfriendpartners, but not in a work way and not in a love way (yet). More scenes with Brian and The Therapist coming soon. In other news I would love for you to tell me how smart and special and great I am so I can feel valued as a writer/smart special great person by people other than my parents. Hooray!


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **_PLZ listen to Arcade Fire's Porno while reading. Ees life changing. Thank you.

When she gets home, there's a note on the counter next to the banana rack (they have one) from Brian.

_Got called in. Tell me about that exhibit with the pedophile and the cats when I get home. It sounded pretty nuts. Love you._

She thinks momentarily, Thank God he's gone, and then remembers how much she loves him. Here, standing in her kitchen, smelling like a brothel and filled to her forehead with well-rehearsed lies, she loves Brian Cassidy. She doesn't overanalyze it—she might not be in love with him, or she might love him simply because he was there at the right place and the right time, but she does. She loves him. She's got an affinity for what he's given her, she's got a soft spot for the way he can talk for hours and never actually say anything. He could never hold a conversation with her mother, but Serena would have liked him anyway.

She likes him, so she takes a shower and goes to bed guilty.

X

"Hey." Brian's voice is gruff as he gets into bed, but it's the cool air on her back from when he lifts the covers that wakes her up to hear it. She rolls towards him, decides to keep her eyes closed but doesn't, smiles. Mocks herself internally for needing to check and double check that it is her boyfriend climbing into this bed.

Boyfriend. She feels twelve.

"Hey," she mumbles. Her hands find the cropped bits of hair at the nape of his neck. "Mm. How was work?"

"Shitty." He kisses her for a second. "I like bein' home with you."

"Better than the Bronx though?" she asks, partly because she hopes so and partly because she hates Internal Affairs and wants him to hate it with the same gusto.

He makes a shrugging noise as if he doesn't know whether or not it's better, and she remembers that he can't actually tell her things about his workdays now. "I'm sorry," she offers. "I know you can't actually tell me anything." The _about the trial_ goes unspoken. Christmas will come in the next week, and then the new year, and then her court date. He makes the shrugging noise again.

"You're gonna be fine, Liv."

She sighs. "I know." She doesn't.

"Was the exhibit good today?" he asks, of Balthus's _Cats and Girls_ at the Met. She nods although she has no idea and then kisses him when the lie slides over her skin. His hand locks up gently in hair someplace and she thinks, I am allowed to have friends. I am allowed to have friends. I am allowed to have friends that are Elliot.

"I love you," she tells him.

"I love you too." Brian traces her jaw and she focuses very intently on things like normalcy and keeping her breaths even and how people kiss every single day and they don't flinch and think of things like duct tape, vodka, bedposts, etc. She wonders if Brian ever feels her hands on his cheeks and thinks about them beating a man unconscious.

She does. She definitely thinks about that.

X

She still feels a little hungover when she wakes up the next morning. Her body screams for caffeine or something to settle her stomach, but it's only four thirty and she's not waking Brian and she doesn't really want to walk around the new apartment alone when it's still dark. The fear is disgusting, and she pushes herself out of bed because of it. She wants to shower again but does not; her hair is still damp from the night before. This, she thinks, as she liberally doses her coffee with sugar, is functionality.

Brian finds her at six watching the morning news and working her way through a second full mug. She's glad he does, because for the past hour and a half, something inside her has been saying, Call Elliot. _CallElliotcallElliotcallElliot_. It's a weird, pernicious whisper that she doesn't think she likes.

"You goin' in early today?" he asks her.

"Normal time." Neither of them quite know when that is.

"You seein' Lindstrom later?" _Ah_, she thinks. The Therapist.

"Yeah. Lunchtime."

He nods. She nods. He's probably proud of her, but she thinks that silly, and she's glad they're still bad at talking a year or so into whatever the hell this is.

On her way out the door, he asks, "You move my longhorn skull again?" right before he kisses her.

"Yup."

"Where?"

"Back of the closet."

He grins. "Next to all my skeletons."

She laughs, resists the urge to commend his improved wit or comedic timing. Resists it when she starts to wonder if Elliot's wit was ever noticeable, or just there.

X

He calls her on her way out of Lindstrom's office.

"I catch you at a bad time?" he asks, and she's never analyzed the way he speaks before, but now the accent is noticeable to her ears, like it's something new. Maybe that sort of thing comes with time and distance. Maybe she'll be even more attuned to all of his details now, if that's even possible.

"You talk weird," she tells him. When he doesn't answer, she adds, "And no. I was just leaving my—I was just finishing up lunch."

"You all good?" he asks, and there it is again.

"What, after yesterday?"

He's quiet, and she can tell he's nodding on the other end because maybe he forgot she isn't next to him. "Yeah. Yesterday was—"

"I'm fine, Elliot," she tells him. "I'm good."

The Therapist today had asked her the same. He had asked her about the holiday cards, if she'd sent them, and God if that's not how this whole fucking mess started. She had nodded and spoken very tightly at first—her throat itched, could she have a glass of water please, but yes, she sent them. Calvin called from up in Vermont, and he hates eighth grade, he's kind of sick of his math teacher. Jeannie Kerns is volunteering more now and painting this mural up in Morningside with her daughter. They're bonding, and they sent her this lovely return letter with a Virgin Mary stamp. The Therapist is good at knowing when to push her buttons, so he stopped asking questions at all and waited for her to say something else. She gets antsy in silence now, and that's only weird because until this summer, she'd been used to living in it.

"_I sent one to the Stablers."_

_Lindstrom's eyebrows are on the up and up and she remembers this weird would you rather type question, like Would you rather sweat cheese or have your eyebrows constantly moving around your face? _

_He doesn't say anything so she adds, "That's my old, um. That's my old partner. His family."_

"_Elliot?"_

_She nods. And then, "His wife called me."_

"_And what did she say?"_

"_Found out she was actually his ex-wife. He's been living in the village for a little over a year now."_

_Dr. Lindstrom is very quiet, and before he can ask her anything she says, "I've been with Brian for a little over a year now." _

_She is guilty as soon as the words leave her mouth. The Therapist's eyebrows keep crawling._

"_What makes you relate the two, Olivia?" he asks her, and she shrugs._

"_Do you think that if you'd known about Elliot's divorce earlier, your circumstances would be different?"_

"_I... he wasn't speaking to me. We weren't... when he left, I called. I left messages. He wanted to move on. From the job. If I'd—If we'd—," she gets flustered. Cuts herself off. _

"_I'm sorry, Olivia," Lindstrom says. "Let's not play the 'What If' game. That's not fair. What I meant was, now that you know about Elliot's divorce, do you... do you want your circumstances to be different?"_

"_What the hell is that supposed to mean?"_

_He says, "You can interpret it any way you like, Olivia."_

_She swallows. "I love Brian."_

"_That isn't the first time I've heard you say that."_

"_This doesn't change anything."_

"_Does it?"_

_She evades the question with, "I went to see him. Elliot. Yesterday."_

"_And how did that go?"_

_Her eyes close. "I, um. I think... fine. I think it went fine. I think we're going to try and be friends, or something." Actually I can't tell you how the fuck it went, because I was drunk as shit when I got there and passed out on his couch before we actually got to discuss anything. Although I'm pretty sure I said enough for the both of us. _

"_That's good, Olivia. I'm happy for you."_

"_I'm happy too," she says, even though that wasn't the question, and she believes it. She does. _

"Liv?"

Elliot's voice catches her attention, and realizes she's missed whatever he's been saying into the phone. It's ridiculous that his voice sends her into spirals. It's ridiculous that she feels like a walking process analysis essay in his proximity, even if that proximity is by phone only.

"Sorry." The words rush out of her mouth a little too quickly. "I, um. I missed that."

He chuckles on the other line. "I asked if you wanted to meet someplace for coffee. Or food." She's thinking of Brian, back at their apartment. She's thinking of that time he tried to make clam sauce and it actually wasn't disgusting, and of how he'll fall asleep in front of an infomercial one night and two to five business days later, she'll find some shit like the No No or the Slap Chop at the front door.

"Elliot—"

"I'm buying, Liv." Her heart melts and she thinks, No, No, stop that.

"El, I... I don't know what I said to you, and I know you want to try to—"

"To what?" he asks, and it's quiet, rough. "Be friends?" She says nothing. "Liv, we don't have to go for coffee right _now_."

"Oh."

"Just... eventually."

"Eventually."

"Yes," he says. "I, um. Wanna talk to you."

"About what?" she asks, more seriously than she intends to, because this can't turn into one of those situations where he puts his hand over hers across the diner table and asks her (again) between bites of his omelet and her pancakes what the fuck happened to her this summer. This can't turn into one of those situations where her whole body screams Run, run, run before they get you, run before they realize that you're so, so full of shit.

If anyone in this world can see through her, it is Elliot Stabler. And he will see through her again and again and again.

"Anything," he tells her, honestly, and she feels the tension leave her shoulders. Whoosh. Simple as that. Old man just wants to be chummy. But then, darkly: "It was you, wasn't it?"

She sucks in a breath. The hand that grips the phone is suddenly freezing in the December air. She feels a compulsion to buy gloves, she should do that, she really should, she lost her leather pair two winters ago and never replaced them because she thought they were on the hat rack at the precinct, but—"Liv. Answer me." And then, in a more desperate whisper, "Please. You can't... you can't leave me with nothin' here, Liv. I've got nothin' to go on, here."

She swallows. "Was what me?"

Her eyes slip shut, and she knows it's coming. It's taken him her entire walk back to the 16 from Lindstrom's, but he's about to hit her with it.

"This summer," he says. "Cop they found in the house on Long Island." She can tell it's making him sick just to say it, just to consider the possibility that yes, of course it was her, of course it was, he just hadn't realized.

"I can't talk about this now."

"They never released a name, Olivia. News had everybody thinking that it couldn't have been anybody from the city, press got no details about the kidnapping, everybody kept it quiet because they—they got the guy, at the end of it." It's an apology, she thinks. A justification for why he didn't come and save her the way he was supposed to. Supposed to. It's an ugly thing to think, and she wishes she hadn't. Into her silence, he pleads, "_Olivia_."

She feels her body locking up as her voice does. "IA wanted to keep it quiet that nobody realized a cop got nabbed til two days after the fact. Thought it was some major department fuckup."

"It—" _I would have known. It wouldn't have happened. I would have checked on you. I should have been there._

"I gotta go, Elliot," she tells him, and she's so stoic. Her whole body feels heavy, feels like brick. She's leaning against the sedan and her gaze settles onto the row of unmarkeds parked in a line before her. She shivers. Two unis walk into the building carrying Starbucks cups, and one of them tosses her a wave despite the fact she thinks she cursed him out at a scene last week for getting too close to the body. She's panicking, and she says it again. "I gotta go."

"You're not gonna do this with me, Liv." It's foreign the way he's already telling her no, she isn't allowed to sink down and away from this, she isn't. "You're not gonna shut me out."

She could laugh in his face. She is not the one who abandoned ship here.

"I'm sure as hell not about to tell you anything over the phone." And then, "Probably told you enough last night anyway."

"You never were a quiet drunk, Benson."

She sighs.

"I'm serious about that coffee, Liv."

"I know."

"I'm gonna... you're gonna be the one to call me though, alright? Just... whenever. Whenever you want. Whenever you're ready."

She nods. "Okay."

_Whenever you're ready._

_Whenever._


End file.
